'Grimm' by night, actress Claire Coffee picks football winners by day

by jmaloni

Fri, Nov 9th 2012 09:45 am

Claire Coffee, a San Francisco-born actress, stars as Adalind Schade on "Grimm." In her spare time, she picks NFL winners based on things like which city has the best cuisine, or which team has the most attractive wide receivers. (photo by Roger Snider)

Actress
Claire Coffee, on the other hand, well, her method isn't quite as scientific.

Earlier
this season, she chose Dallas over Carolina because of her affinity for Tex-Mex
and nachos. Claire predicted Atlanta would top Oakland because the southern
city was home to "Designing Women." And she prognosticated the Raiders would
edge out the Dolphins because Miami QB Ryan Tannehill couldn't edge in the
sides of his IKEA drawer.

Hey, it
beats flipping a coin.

And who
doesn't like salty tortilla chips, Delta Burke and laughing at the Dolphins?

While her
bang-up blog is funny, Claire is, of course, better known for her acting work
on NBC's "Grimm." On the fantasy-action-thriller, she plays Adalind Schade, a
"hexenbiest." It's amusing because, for as charming and playful as Claire seems
picking football games, her character is equally vain, vengeful and a real
witch (like, with spells and everything).

In
"Grimm's" first season, Adalind proved to be quite a thorn in the side of
Portland Det. Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli). She poisoned Nick's aunt, Marie,
and put his partner, Hank (Russell Hornsby), in a trance; later, Adalind tried
to kill Nick and ultimately left his girlfriend, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch), in
a coma.

"I think
she's a great villain," Claire says. "The stuff that's about to come out ... she,
I've never played a character who has so little disregard for other people and
other peoples' feelings."

When Nick
took Adalind's supernatural powers, it appeared we'd seen the last of her. But
she returned with a plan to ruin his life - and that of his police captain,
Sean Renard (Sasha Roiz), a hexenbiest (we think) who turned his back on her
when she lost her magical mojo.

This
season, Adalind has become "more and more and more evil," Claire says. In the
preview for next week's midseason finale, Adalind is back in Portland - much to
the chagrin of Nick and Hank.

"There's
a pretty good cliffhanger that we just shot," Claire says. "All I can say is
that she's just an extreme manipulator. Any power that she's lost, she's kind
of made up for twofold in just sheer will and motivation. I think her new
superpower is she doesn't have a conscience."

With
"Grimm" going on winter break, Claire has more time to focus on her side gig. A
49ers fan, she had worked on another website in the past where she spoke of
football in "stereotypical girl terms," as she says. As the 2012 football
season began, the gridiron guru decided to make her own videos. Claire would
pick winners, and take tongue-in-cheek shots at pigskin and pop culture targets
like Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari.

"Picking
football games is so crazy," Claire says. "People bet on all these games, but
you have no idea who's going to win - especially (because) there's so much
parody. So I thought it would be funny to just pick games based on ridiculous
qualifications every week. So that's what I've been doing."

Watch
Claire Coffee pick NFL games on her website, http://clairecoffee.com/, catch "Grimm" Friday at 9 p.m. on NBC, and
stay tuned for Claire's romantic comedy "Holly's Holiday," which is set to
debut this winter on Lifetime.